Voter Suppression

In Madison County:

In November and December of 2017, the State of Tennessee purged approximately 6,300 voters from Madison County rolls in anticipation of the 2018 elections, because the people purged hadn't voted in 2 elections. This was before the law that prohibits such purges went into effect.

The Center for American Progress wrote an article on voter suppression nationwide,July 18, 2017One interesting fact from this article: Between 2014-16, "Indiana removed a whopping 22.4 percent of its registered voters.58 The governor of Indiana during that time--Mike Pence, the current vice president—now [July 2017] chairs the so-called Election Integrity Commission alongside Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach."

Reasons given nationally for voter roll purges:

felons voting illegally (TN Secretary of State office is especially interested in this this year. Go here to get your rights restored!)

"One analysis found that out of the roughly 7 million Americans flagged by Crosscheck, only four individuals have been charged with double voting or deliberate double registration."​ <---The Center for American Progress article to which we linked, above.

Here's a comparison between CROSSCHECK and ERIC, two programs designed to double-check voter registrations. We'll leave it to you to determine which program is fair and honest, and which one is a scam designed to purge as many minorities as possible from the voting rolls.

Given the extremely low number of fraudulent voters actually uncovered by these programs, one wonders why we need them at all. One solution, successful in Oregon and other states, is Automatic Voter Registration (AVR). AVR has increased voter participation even as it serves as an effective barrier to voter fraud. Read more about AVR here. Go here for a summary of Tennessee law regarding Voter Registration Modernization (VRM). Finally, Democrats in the TN State Legislature introduced the following bills to implement AVR in 2017-18:

Updates on Crosscheck, July 2018Several lawsuits have been filed about Crosscheck and related schemes, and results came in in June of 2018. Most of these cases are being decided against those who would purge the rolls.

An article about recent developments, from ProPublica - Kris Koback, the Kansas Secretary of State who spearheaded Trump's short-lived Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity and is now running for Governor of Kansas, had his seven days in court this spring, and utterly failed to justify a 2013 Kansas Voter ID law that required Kansans to present proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. Federal Judge Julie Robinson was so scandalized by Kobach's performance at trial that she held him in contempt for his willful failure to obey a ruling, and ordered him to complete six hours of continuing education on proper evidentiary procedures. https://www.propublica.org/article/kris-kobach-voter-fraud-kansas-trial

The League of Women Voters and the Indiana chapter of the NAACP (in one suit) and Common Cause (in another) are seeking an injunction to keep Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson from sharing information she says she can under Indiana law. The information is crosscheck voter purge lists. A judge has blocked her from doing so, effectively blocking the purge of Indiana voters in advance of the 2018 election.https://www.indystar.com/story/news/2018/06/11/judge-blocks-plan-purge-indiana-voters-before-november-election/689847002/​

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the State of Ohio in its 2016 purging of half a million voters. Two articles: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/11/us/politics/supreme-court-upholds-ohios-purge-of-voting-rolls.htmlhttps://www.cnn.com/2018/06/12/opinions/scotus-decision-ohio-case-voting-rights/index.html This decision might seem like a death blow to the movement against voter purging, but it hinges on the Supreme Court's ruling that notification by postcard is sufficient warning to a voter that s/he will be purged. Greg Palast (with the ACLU in Kansas, with other people in other states, including Jesse Jackson in Illinois) is suing 25 states, starting with Ohio and Kansas, for the following information:

all the names of people who have been purged - Ohio has already provided their list

lists of those voters who were sent cards

lists of those voters who returned their cards

etc.

With this information, Palast and his team can knock on doors and see if the voters on a state's purge list still live at these residences. It is very likely that the Palast Foundation will be able to prove that a huge majority of the people purged from the polls do indeed live at the address on their voter registration card. In this way, the Supreme Court decision approving the Ohio purges based on the determination thatthe postcards constitute reasonable notice of being purged, can be reversed. Here is Palast explaining all of this: